this has been sitting for like a full week and a half because i was too nervous about posting but fuck it we ball
the best of us
ao3
Her sheets are a bloody mess. Literally a bloody mess. In a more cheerful mood, Isabela might have made a joke about the benefits of red bedsheets for someone in the habit of getting cut, or burned, or... badly, badly impaled by a Qunari sword. As it is, the thought flashes in her mind, but fails to amuse her.
"If you're going to stay here," Anders grunts through clenched teeth, his face flushed and beading with sweat as he leans over the bed, hands glowing with magic. "At least make yourself useful and help me keep the wound closed. I'm... shit, shit! Esther, stop making it harder, you stubborn—!"
"I got her," Isabela says quickly as she jumps to her feet. Hawke's right hand, which had stubbornly been keeping her insides in, even despite barely clinging to consciousness, has slipped away, and the Champion of Kirkwall—What a joke. Placing a title like that on a dying woman's shoulders—now seems on the verge of bleeding out right there and then. Isabela catches her hand before it slips from the bed and holds it back over the wound, keeping her own palms pressed over Hawke's as she pushes down. "How's this? Helping?"
"Yes, I— No. Don't press so hard. Just hold her there. This isn't going to be instant."
"Of course it isn't." Nothing involving Esther fucking Hawke is ever instant. It always has to be a long, drawn-out battle; a painful struggle that Isabela wants nothing to do with. She doesn't know why she is even here. A few more hours and she would have been long gone from this wretched hole. Salted air, the taste of brine, freedom calling out to her with every wave off of the distant shore…
Instead, she's here, uselessly holding her friend's cold hand over a wound that Isabela isn't sure can even be fixed—not with a whole the size of a fucking tree stump in her gut. Isabela forces her eyes away from the mess and looks down at their joined hands instead. At Esther's rough and calloused fingers, so different from her own that it's remarkable.
Hawke coughs. The blood that flecks out does not alarm Isabela. It does not horrify her. When she frantically shouts for Anders to help, and when Anders barks at her to shut up, and when Hawke coughs up another lungful of blood, Isabela does not have to pretend her hands are not shaking. There's no use. Anders already knows. Why else would she stay?
Why else would he let her stay, after what she tried to pull?
What she should have pulled, Isabela mentally berates herself. What she would have been long gone with by now, had she been half the pirate she's supposed to be. The smart half. The half that only cares about saving her own skin, not the poor fool that would have died trying to protect it. Asshole. She's so selfish. Selfish, and stubborn, and stupid, and—
And suddenly coughing again.
Isabela doesn't think when she lifts her free hand to cradle the back of her friend's head. Her fingers thread through her hair; long black locks that irrationally remind her of the sea at midnight beneath the hull of the first ship she ever captained. She cups her palm around the back of Hawke's skull and gently lifts, pulling her up far enough that the next bloody cough can instead trickle from her lips down to her chin.
"Easy," she murmurs, though she knows Hawke can't hear her. At least, she hopes not. The embarrassment of her coddling being discovered is too much to handle right this moment. "Easy... You've been worse off, remember? We got through the Deep Roads, didn't we? We can get through this. Just..."
Isabela trails off, chewing on her lower lip. Just what?
"Just live, will you? If not for your sake, then for... his." Anders is pointedly ignoring her, his brows knitted in concentration as his hands tremble over the gaping wound. "Just look at him. He's a damned mess. Don't you want to get up and tell him off for being so... so..."
Pathetic. Ridiculous. Over-dramatic and emotional and weak and—
—and so bloody fucking in love with her that he's killing himself to save her life.
A few hours and she would have been gone. A few hours, and none of this would be her problem. Esther's guts spilling over the bed like the intestines of an eviscerated pig? Not her problem. Anders' magic burning him alive from the inside out as him and Justice desperately try to heal what by all rights should already be dead and cold? Not. Her. Problem. She was running, she was free.
It's all her fault.
"I'm sorry," she chokes. Anders' eyes briefly lift to regard her with... something. Pity? Disgust? She can't tell. He's already looking back to Esther before she can parse the expression.
"Don't apologize." Despite everything, his tone is not unkind. Somehow, that makes Isabela feel worse. "Just—"
"Keep her head lifted. I know."
"Not what I was going to say."
She laughs humorlessly. "I know what you were going to say." Blood dribbles from the corner of Esther's lips. Isabela brushes it away with her thumb before it can stain her hair. "You're not nearly as clever as you think you are, sweetheart." The corner of his mouth quirks, but he doesn't comment. Isabela adds, "and I'm not half as heartless as you think I am."
"I don't think that." A pause, and he lifts a hand from Hawke's wound to push his sweat-soaked bangs from his forehead. "I never did."
A snort. "Could have fooled me, the way you're glaring at me every two seconds." The words come easier than they should, falling back on old habits as if she was paying a casual visit at the clinic. Easier to banter and flirt and shoot jabs than to face the fact that the bed is drenched in blood and the room reeks of copper and Hawke still isn't moving.
Anders smiles, just slightly. His lips tremble. "I've hardly had a chance to look your way. But if it makes you feel any better, I will very pointedly and very dramatically glare at you as soon as this is over." The words are light, but he's sweating, and shaking, and fuck, the poor sod looks on the verge of collapse.
She can't help it. "...and if she doesn't make it?"
Anders' magic does not falter, but his expression goes carefully, deliberately neutral, even as the tension around his eyes seem to increase tenfold, and his magic flares bright with renewed purpose. Isabela winces at the sight.
"Right," she exhales. "Shut up, Isabela."
"Generally good advice."
Her answering smile is no less forced than his.
"She's stable."
The breathless declaration nearly goes over her head. Isabela's eyes snap from Esther's pallid face, meeting the mage's exhausted stare as his hands tremble in midair, no longer glowing. "Stable... good?"
"Yes." He drops his hands and sways. His face is pale, expression drawn and pinched and— "Catch me."
"Whoa— Hey!" Isabela manages to get ahold of his arms just as he pitches forward, narrowly avoiding crashing directly onto Esther's freshly-healed abdomen. His knees buckle as she struggles to hold his weight, but he's quick to find his footing. After a moment, he steadies himself. His breath comes out in sharp, pained pants, and when he opens his eyes again, the look of exhaustion in them is even more prominent than it had been just moments before. "Easy does it," she coaxes as she helps ease him down beside the bed.
Anders collapses into a sitting position, his hands splayed against the floor as his head tips forward, chin to chest. "That... took more out of me than I thought it would," he rasps. He lifts a hand in the air, gesturing vaguely towards the other side of the bed. "Potions... Drawer... Beside the..."
But Isabela is already crossing to the bedside table. She knows Esther's bedroom well enough to locate anything she needed with her eyes closed, including the drawer full of potions. A habit picked up from the army, the warrior explained, naked and out of breath while Isabela took it upon herself to rifle through every drawer and cabinet she could find. The king did not exactly have many mages following him to the front lines. If someone was hurt on the field, you needed to have everything in a familiar place, easy to reach.
She's never been more grateful for Esther's stupid Fereldan quirks.
Yanking the drawer open, Isabela finds that the warrior's supply had somehow tripled since she last snooped through her things. Considering her current housemate, it figures. She banishes the thought and pulls out two glass vials, both corked and sealed. They clink together as she steps over Anders' legs, nudging his shoulder with the toe of her boot as she crouches down beside him.
"Which one?"
He lifts his gaze, eyes bloodshot and unfocused. Anders blinks slowly at her and the potions, and she huffs, emphatically shaking the bottles in front of him. "Red or blue?"
Anders just squints.
"Oh for the love of... Am I going to have to force feed it to you?"
At least he isn't too exhausted to roll his eyes at her. "Red," Anders grunts. Then frowns. "Blue... No. Red. No—"
"Are we playing eenie-meenie now? Pick a bloody color."
Anders huffs and holds out his hand. "Just give me both."
That, she can do. The corks squeak as they pop from the glass, and the mage's hands are trembling so badly that Isabela has to hold her hands over his while he tips the vials back, lips pressed against the rim of each glass as she holds them for him. It makes her feel a little ridiculous. Like a nursemaid, or the handmaiden of a sick Orlesian lord. But the sight of the tension finally melting from his body makes it difficult to regret.
"You look like shit," she comments, watching as Anders shuts his eyes with a weary exhale. He snorts.
"Thank you." He doesn't open his eyes. "Never... healed something that severe before." His words come out slow and labored. "Maybe... a bit ambitious..."
"You're an idiot," she snaps, the concern in the pirate's tone robbing her words of any bite. "And here I thought she was the reckless one! Why didn't you say you weren't able to do this?"
Finally, he opens his eyes. Exhaustion, desperation, and a deep, profound sense of relief all swirl in the warm, honeyed brown of his eyes. "I couldn't lose her," Anders murmurs, and Isabela's expression instantly goes soft. "Not like this."
"Selfish fool."
His mouth twists into a tired smile. "You sound like Justice."
"Ugh. That's a low blow." Isabela slumps down to sit beside him on the stone, a loud, dramatic sigh on her lips as she leans into him. She half-expects Anders to stiffen, or shove her off, or say something about Hawke and how he can't. Instead, he leans into her in turn, wrapping an arm around her shoulder as they press together. The warmth is nice.
It's also the only warmth in the room. Esther still looks like a corpse awaiting the funeral pyre.
Isabela frowns, reaching for the sheet covering the mattress and pulling it higher up. Anders assists, helping to tug the blanket over Esther's bare chest and shoulders until it comfortably covers all the way up to the base of her neck. There. Isabela sighs.
"So... She's alright?" Maker, she hates how her voice cracks. Isabela grimaces and tries again. "She'll live?"
"Yes." The certainty in Anders' tone leaves no room for doubt or argument. Isabela's entire body slackens with relief, sagging further against the man's side.
"She owes us a round at the Hanged Man for this."
"She owes you nothing. If not for her, you would be hanging by your neck in a Qunari prison." He sounds more weary than angry. Tired, but not without conviction. "She saved your life."
Isabela stays silent. The unasked question is clear.
Why did you come back?
"You're right," she finally mutters, shifting uncomfortably under his gaze as Anders turns his head to look at her. She can practically hear his brow lifting, though she can't bring herself to look. "She did save me. She risked her damned neck just for my sake. She always does, and... shit." Isabela runs her fingers through her hair and pulls it in frustration. "What was I supposed to do? Say thank you? No thank you? How do I... Where do you draw the line between taking someone like that for granted and..."
Anders huffs out what might be a laugh. "And loving them?" he supplies. The words make Isabela flinch.
"No. Don't be ridiculous." His stare does not waver, and her fingers twitch anxiously in her lap. "I don't..."
"It's alright." Anders pats her knee with his free hand. It lingers for a moment, then falls away. "I love her too."
Isabela snorts. "Really? I never would have guessed. Not even once."
His smile grows, even as his eyes droop closed once again. "Esther is... a hard woman not to fall for. I don't blame you."
"Are you kidding me? She's a hard woman to even like." She shifts again, though she isn't certain why. Her leg feels warm where it rested on his knee, though she refuses to dwell on it. "She's stubborn. And bossy."
"Very bossy," Anders agrees.
"And a busybody," Isabela continues, counting off Esther Hawke's many faults on her fingers. "And self-righteous. And aggressive. And overbearing. And—"
"A good person," he says quietly. "One of the best. Better than you and me, that's for sure."
"That's a low bar to clear."
"It is." Anders' voice sounds impossibly fond. "And yet, here we are."
Isabela swallows, her eyes drifting from Anders to the woman lying in the bed above them. Alive and stable. Thanks in no small part to the abomination that refused to let her go.
Or the cowardly chickenshit that was just a breath away from freedom when she decided to turn back.
"...here we are," Isabela echoes.